Fishy Trend Piece: The Art World Has Sushi Cliques

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A new study shows that restaurant-grade tuna sushi is sometimes higher in mercury than supermarket sushi, but don’t tell that to the arty types name-checked in an Observer piece today: “Artists and the people who make their living off of them love to eat sushi,” writes Leon Neyfakh. We should’ve guessed this when Ryan McGinley told us he eats at Takahashi. In fact, McGinley tells the Observer that it’s the “Max’s Kansas City of sushi” (he has spent about $50,000 there ever since his weed dealer introduced him to it), though Omen (with its regulars Olivier Zahm, Terry Richardson, John Currin, Cindy Sherman, Zac Posen, Marc Jacobs, and others) sounds like way more of a scene. But people don’t come to Omen to be seen — they go there for privacy, according to interior designer Ryan Korban.

“It’s really hard to have a private conversation in New York, especially since the city’s so small and everyone’s industries always overlap,” he said. “What I’ve discovered in my circle of friends — and we’ve learned this the hard way — is even if you think you’re in a remote restaurant, like a Chinese restaurant somewhere in the East Village, there’s inevitably somebody there that’s going to overhear.”

So the way to ensure confidentiality is to go where everyone else in your industry goes? Then again, we’ve never understood why FSG publisher Jonathan Galassi and Grove/Atlantic publisher Morgan Entrekin compete for authors at tables that are right next to each other at Union Square Café. Anyway, if you’re eager to hear Ryan Korban’s secrets, you now know where to go.